Are You Happy or Not?
by V. Zhao
Summary: An alternate universe where Ranma is a Japanese soldier during the second World War and Shampoo is the Chinese girl that he loves. This story is mostly about Shampoo's life as a typical Chinese wife at the beginning of the century. What will she give up f


Are You Happy or Not?  
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A Ranma ½ Fanfic  
by V. Zhao  
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Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma 1/2 or any of its characters. I am   
also not taking credit for WWII. I will only take credit where credit   
is due. Song belongs to Alec Su. Lyrics translated by me.  
  
Author's Note: I write this at a time when a country is grieving and   
I along with it grieves. I grieve not only for the American people; I   
grieve for the whole world. I write this to remind us of war. To   
remind us of something horrible that should never have to happen no   
matter how angry we are. To remind us of hardships and suffering that   
comes from hatred. And so I give you my new piece Are You Happy or   
Not much based on China during WWII. Thank you for taking the time   
to read this. My heart goes out to the families of the victims of the   
horrible crimes committed on 9/11, 2001. May this day live in our   
hearts. May this day forever leave us with such a feeling of world   
unity against hate and violence. Let us live in PEACE.  
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I just want to know if you're happy or not  
Have you found that someone who understands you?  
Close your eyes and the wind will blow  
Perhaps it's just the season  
  
I can't walk down that street since you live there  
Perhaps it is only my heart that feels so old  
Where we went wrong in the past  
Can we go back and just say we're sorry?  
After all these years, I can still remember  
All those promises I owe you  
  
I just want to know if you're happy or not  
Have you found that someone who understands you?  
The sun is rising over the horizon  
Can you see it with your eyes?  
  
That bit about breaking up was your wish  
Those words you said to me I have stored in my heart  
Where we went wrong in the past  
Can we go back and just say we're sorry?  
The people I've loved still live in the memories  
I've never had the chance to say goodbye  
  
The ones I loved aren't here  
I can't forget about caring for you  
I just want to hear your voice  
  
Where we went wrong in the past  
Can we go back and just say we're sorry?  
The people I've loved still live in the memories  
I've never had the chance to say goodbye  
  
I just want to know if you're happy or not  
Have you found that someone who understands you?  
Close your eyes and the wind will blow  
Perhaps it's just the season  
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Chapter 1: Such a Way of Life  
  
I have lived through much in my life though it was a relatively  
short one. Love? Yes, I have loved. Hate? Yes, I believe I have hated  
even more. Happiness was a rare find in my days when the sky was   
falling so carelessly on top of my home, my family, my life. Such a  
thing called happiness was a luxury. Fear, however, haunted every   
corner of the Earth. Fear haunted my dreams at night. It consumed me  
with its darkness and enveloped my very soul.  
  
My children come to me every spring with offerings, symbols of  
respect for the dead. I regret that I had left them. I regret that   
they had never learned to love me. Never learned to see that their   
mother suffered for them. They live in a world where everything I had  
known is irrelevant. I had known pain.  
  
You come to me now asking for something. Asking for a story. I  
shall give my story if only you promise to treasure it as if it  
were your own. There was nothing more that I would have liked than to  
have lived. Let me live in your memories, live in your souls. Give   
life back to me for a few moments as I remember the days when the  
world was palpable to me. It's a love story. Just a simple love   
story.  
  
Gather around, my children. Gather so I may give you my love,  
give you my pain, give you my fear, give you my life.  
----------------------------------------------------  
  
"Shampoo!" cried Cologne as she looked through the bustling   
village for her great-granddaughter. "Shampoo! Where are you, girl?"  
The old woman hopped on her staff across the dirt road and into the   
courtyard of the family house. "Shampoo, there you are."  
  
A purple haired girl sat at her dresser mirror putting various   
trinkets delicately into her tresses. Her cheeks were flushed as she  
fingered the gold pieces that dangled festively from her head.   
Tomorrow would be a great day for her for it was to be her wedding   
day. In a small village such as this, or even anywhere, a wedding day  
would be one of the most important events in a girl's life. A girl  
in those days would only leave the house for three occasions; her   
birth, her wedding, and her death. Such a sheltered life was expected  
for any proper young woman who married into a respectable family.   
  
At the green age of sixteen, she was being married off to a   
rich family named Li. They're son, a young man of eighteen, had seen  
the purple haired beauty laughing gaily one day with a cousin when he  
had peeped over the great wall of the Zhou family confines and   
immediately grew smitten. The engagement had been quite orthodox  
where the parents of the Li boy requested to meet the girl in   
question. And with the mother's approval, the girl would be   
proclaimed acceptable for a bride.  
  
After months of shopping for her dowry, she was from a   
well-to-do family after all, she had finally arrived at her big day.   
Of course she did not know her future husband well; she wasn't   
expected to. The only thing that she had to do was to obey her future  
husband no matter what and prove to be raised by an elite family. The  
way she would carry herself in the next phase of her life will not   
only define her own honor and dignity, but her husband's as well.   
This duty was very important in the social structure of those days.  
  
"You silly girl," Cologne sighed as she rested in a chair next  
to the elaborate dresser. "Stop playing with your jewelry and listen  
to what I have to say."  
  
Shampoo dropped the jade earrings she was holding up against   
her ears and turned questioning eyes towards her elder. She knew this  
was the final lecture she would be given. After all, she was to leave  
before dawn the next morning for the matchmaker's house and then be  
married into another family. The thought made her sad so she did her  
best to pay her full attention.  
  
"Your mother is a wonderful wife, dutiful, honorable, and   
capable." The old woman voice became reminiscent of a time long gone.  
"I'll have you know that your father truly made a good choice of whom  
to marry. She was the finest girl in the village at that time. Every  
eligible bachelor went knocking at the great gates of the Zhang   
household. However, she would never let any man in. I asked her many  
years later why this was so. 'Mei Rui,' I said, 'Mei Rui, why are you  
so stubborn when all those suitors were banging at your door?' Not   
that I was complaining. She did choose my Da Swin Zi after all. You   
know what she said? She just smiled at me and said in the most calm   
voice, 'My mother taught me to always wait for the best.'  
  
"So you see, your mother was a great lady. In my day it was   
rumored that her mother was actually a Gege from the Imperial Palace  
who had run away with a man she had fallen in love with. People who  
had visited the Zhang house had always thought your mother carried  
herself like a princess. And you know what? The rumors were true. She  
was the daughter of the Golden Emperor's daughter. Do you realize   
that you have Imperial blood in your veins?" Cologne looked at her  
great-granddaughter skeptically as if she doubted that she was worthy   
of such an honor.  
  
"Now you are being married off to another family. You must  
remember everything that your mother had taught you, remember how  
she carried herself with such great dignity. You must carry yourself  
in the same manner. Remember that you are the Golden Emperor's  
great-granddaughter. Always obey your husband no matter what he does.  
I won't lie to you about life as a wife. I wish you luck that your  
husband will be warm and loving. But even if he is not, even if he   
may throw tantrums and hit you, you will carry yourself with honor.   
You will never let yourself lose face. Never let your husband lose  
face. Life as a woman is not easy. This is your duty. This is your  
life."  
  
The old woman stared at Shampoo meaningfully for a few moments  
letting her words sink in. She had already seen many years ago the  
lines on her great-granddaughter's face would telltale her life of  
suffering. When she was young, perhaps four, she had asked a fortune  
teller to visit the young girl and tell her of her life so she may  
prepare her in the proper. What the fortune teller saw was shocking.  
She had such a life of bitterness and abuse that Cologne had almost  
wanted to kill the girl right then to save her from her future. Mei  
Rui stopped her before she could put her hands on the cleaver in the  
kitchen. Her granddaughter-in-law held the smiling toddler in her   
arms and exclaimed that all creatures had the right to live no matter  
how much suffering they would experience. In a way, Shampoo's mother  
had both given her life and saved her life.  
  
Shampoo nodded and vowed to her great-grandmother that she   
would be an obedient wife to Li. She watched as the old woman's eyes  
grew misty with tears. "Oh, Great-grandmother, don't cry. It's bad   
luck for the bride's kinsmen to cry on her wedding day."  
  
Cologne sniffled and patted Shampoo's hand as she rose up on   
her cane and prepared to hobble out. Before she closed the door   
behind her, she turned around and said for the last time, "Remember  
what I said. Let that guide you through the voyage of life."  
----------------------------------------------------  
  
"Oh, you look so beautiful, Zhou xiao jie." The stout   
matchmaker primped and poked at her headpiece until it was perfectly  
placed on top of her graceful purple head. It was true; she looked  
absolutely ravishing in her red wedding attire. She could barely  
recognize the reflection in the mirror that of a grown up lady   
wearing rouge and lipstick. The woman in the mirror looked nothing  
like her. She was a carefree, burdenfree girl who never bothered with  
heavy makeup and stifling dresses. With the nature grace of her   
mother, Shampoo had always looked exquisite in even the plainest of  
cotton dresses.  
  
That morning her mother had waken her up long before the sun   
had risen and requested a word with her. She sat by her bed and   
smoothed her forehead with an affectionate hand. "Daughter," she had  
said in her sweet, tranquil voice that the whole household longed to   
hear every day. "Daughter, this belongs to you." With her slim, white  
hand, she held out a golden hair comb with the Imperial Dragon   
cast at the top. The elaborate design of the dragon was encrusted   
with jade scales. "My mother gave it to me the day I got married. Her  
mother gave it to her the night before she ran away from the Palace.  
And now I'm giving it to you."  
  
Shampoo had looked into her mother's face with the comb in her   
hand. Her mother's face was free of aging and untroubled like that  
of the Goddess of Mercy. She had never been close to her. The job of   
bringing her up had always fallen upon her great-grandmother's   
shoulders. However, at that moment, there was a distinct bond between  
them that made Shampoo feel like her heart was sinking into her toes.  
Though she had never really been by her mother's side, she had also  
never left her mother for even a whole week before. The thought of a  
whole new lifestyle had just occurred to her at that moment. She   
would no longer be in the comforts of her own home; she would be an  
outsider serving a different family.   
  
The voice of her mother flowed into the night like liquid   
silver, cool and unwavering in the crisp air. "Daughter, I want you  
to know that your mother loves you, pains you." Her eyes grew dreary  
as if a few courageous clouds had dared to shroud the full moon's   
luminosity. "Perhaps my purposeful neglect was not as well-thoughtout  
as I thought it would be. How I wish I had known you, Daughter. The  
neglect, however, will make you a stronger woman, and more ceceptable  
to this new arrangement. It will help you survive when your   
surrounding walls crumble. Nothing lasts forever, Daughter. Nothing.  
If anything ever goes wrong, if times are hard, I want you to sell   
this and feed your family."  
----------------------------------------------------  
  
Shampoo clutched the solid gold comb in her hand as the   
carriage stumbled down the road. Dawn was fast approaching but the   
air still wreaked of the chill of the night. Her breath came out in   
puffs of steam in front of her face. How impermanent those little  
clouds were, living a life of only a few seconds before it   
disappeared and dissolved into nothing. She had taken advantage of   
the life she once had. Oh how she missed it when she no longer had   
it.  
  
Now the carriage was at the gates of the Li Household. A   
servant announced the bride's arrival with his practiced cry. She was  
helped out of the cart by a faceless servingman and lead next to the  
bridegroom. From under her heavy veil, she could not see him, nor his  
flickering eyes, nor his triumphant grin. They bowed to the heavens,  
the earth, and then to each other. And that began another chapter of   
her young life.  
----------------------------------------------------  
End of Chapter 1  
Notes: Seems like a lot of babbling now, but I promise it'll get   
better. Ranma may not come in till Chapter 3. Really, I hope you will  
continue reading for the plot. If you haven't caught on, Shampoo's  
hubby is Mousse. Ok, that's it for Chapter 1. Please review! 


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